


It Must Be For Something

by edenbound



Series: If We Wake To Discover [Crowley and Aziraphale raise Adam] [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:01:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21510922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenbound/pseuds/edenbound
Summary: Aziraphale comforts Crowley in the wreckage of a house during the Blitz.[Extension of the scene in 'If We Wake To Discover'. Probably doesn't make sense without it, but in summary, Crowley has been adopting unwanted children throughout history and raising them.]
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: If We Wake To Discover [Crowley and Aziraphale raise Adam] [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1436134
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	It Must Be For Something

**Author's Note:**

> There is a note of hope at the end of this one, but it's still pretty bleak. Sorry. 
> 
> Title is from 'Eden', as ever. [Lyrics](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/10000maniacs/eden.html); [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB0C2g7851U).

"Her name was Caitlin," Crowley says, into Aziraphale's shoulder. The darkness around them rings now with shouts as people fight the last of the fires; the bombers have moved off, for the night, leaving the usual devastation in their wake. Aziraphale assumes that Crowley dealt with the last of the flames here, in this house, to get to... his family. He shifts a little, gathering Crowley's lanky body against his own a little more comfortably, and settles there with a hand on Crowley's hair in comfort (almost, _almost_ benediction). This part of the night's work is familiar: it might be Crowley this time, but Aziraphale has held mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters in the bombed-out remains of their homes almost every night for the last fifty-seven nights.

"Irish?" he guesses, and he can picture her: red hair like Crowley's, perhaps. Freckles. Side by side with Crowley, they would have _looked_ like family, which has not always been the case with Crowley's children. It gives Aziraphale a slight pang which he doesn't want to examine too closely.

"Yeah," Crowley says, dully. "She was the fifteenth in her family."

"That's... a lot. How did you come to...?"

"Came across her during some work in Ireland. Her father was hitting her." Crowley shifts slightly, and Aziraphale thinks he's about to pull away, but he doesn't. "Every time he lays a hand on any of them now, he thinks his hands have turned into snakes. With any luck, he's in an asylum now."

"Good," Aziraphale says, surprising himself with his own vehemence. "And you brought her to London?"

"Nah. She followed me." He sounds almost normal now, Aziraphale thinks, and prepares himself to let go, with an odd pang that he doesn't understand. "Stowed away on the boat across. Hate boats."

"You always have."

"Yeah. Well. She followed me. Wouldn't leave me alone. But she wasn't getting enough to eat and in the end... she was only six. Determined though. Smart."

Aziraphale hums out an amused little sound. "Like you. Takes after her... father?"

"She knew me as both," Crowley says. He does sit up now, rubbing at his face. Aziraphale holds out a handkerchief and Crowley takes it, wiping at his eyes without shame. "She saw right through me from the start. Knew what I was, though she'd insist that I wasn't bad enough to be a demon and I must be something else. Still an... I told her I wasn't," he adds, hastily. "I did tell her. But she had very strong opinions. You couldn't tell her much, not even when she was small, and definitely not now."

Aziraphale looks around at the little house. Not just the house of a young woman; that was obvious even with the blackening of the fire. There was one wall not fully burnt, and on it a shelf still hung, with the remains of a child's books and toys. "And she had a family?" 

"Yeah. Husband and two children. One still a baby."

"Crowley, I... I'm sorry."

"Not your fault." He finishes cleaning his face, pulling away more. He grimaces at the handkerchief, miracles it clean and hands it back. "I came by this evening to find them clearing out this house, carrying out Caitlin... Nobody survived, they said." He shook his head, his mouth pressing into a line that denied further tears. "Anyway. It's over now."

"It all seems so pointless!" Aziraphale bursts out. Crowley's eyes fix on his, more snake-like than ever in the dim red light that Aziraphale realises comes from a fire in the next street. 

"What does?"

"All this suffering! Caitlin and her children. All your children! I don't think there's been a single one of them without some kind of tragic past or deprivation. You've never taken a child from a happy home, it's always been children like Caitlin, or orphans, or... And none of this is fair! These people can't all deserve this punishment, this -- We should be able to do something! I try not to question the Almighty, but -- "

Crowley's hand slaps across Aziraphale's mouth, cutting off his words more through startlement than actual efficacy. "Don't say it, Aziraphale. Don't start asking those questions too loudly." He pulls back, looking almost embarrassed by his instinctive reaction. "It's a long way down."

It takes Aziraphale a moment to understand what Crowley meant as he stands and brushes himself off, and then it hits. " _That's_ the kind of question you were asking?"

"It's definitely one of them," Crowley says, "and I don't know which one was the problem. I don't know what I did, angel. But it's better never to ask if all this," with a sweeping gesture of his arm, taking in all the human suffering around them, "is worth it. You won't get an answer."

He walks away from the burnt-out remains of Caitlin's home without looking back again, though there is none of the usual swing in his gait. Aziraphale sits there for a long moment and then -- "Crowley?"

He glances over his shoulder.

"A lot of children have been evacuated from London. Is the eldest possibly...?"

The look of hope in Crowley's eyes is almost _unbearable_ , palpable from this distance. "Caitlin wasn't stupid, and I have been... busy lately," Crowley says, slowly. "So I might not have... Thanks, angel. I'll look into it."


End file.
